1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to discharge display devices, and is more particularly concerned with discharge display devices which are constructed as plasma panels.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a discharge display device of the type disclosed in my prior application, Ser. No. 558,495, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,667 an insulating matrix which is provided with holes divides a common discharge chamber into an auxiliary gas discharge chamber exhibiting a large discharge path for operation with a low voltage, and into an electrode acceleration chamber possessing a very short discharge path so that no gas discharge takes place at a high voltage, and serves as a carrier at least for the auxiliary anode which is divided up into rows, and possibly also for the control electrode which is arranged on the other side and which is divided up into columns extending at right angles to the rows, while the cathode and the anode, in particular as screening electrodes, are designed as common electrodes with correspondingly large areas.
By providing that the potential of each of the conductor paths of the auxiliary anode arranged on the front side of the insulating holed matrix is consecutively raised to a few hundred volts, e.g. +300 V, in relation to the cathode potential, a narrow, approximately wedge-shaped gas discharge is ignited in rows over the entire surface of the insulating holed matrix and is stepped onward (self scanning), and from this primary gas discharge, with a sufficiently positive control signal (V) electrons are extracted more or less in a beamed fashion through the holes, corresponding to the image points, by means of the conductor paths of the control electrode which are arranged on the other side of the insulating holed matrix in the form of columns and at right angles to the insulating matrix, whereupon the electrons are accelerated on a sufficiently short discharge path without the ignition of a gas discharge in accordance with the known Paschen's curve toward the anode which, for example, is designed as a screening electrode. Therefore, this is, for example, an arrangement which is suitable for the reproduction of moving pictures, possibly also in color. A prerequisite of this arrangement is an item of information which, similarly to the video signal of a picture tube, is periodically repeated, although the content of the information can change constantly. Therefore, one of its applications is for the reproduction of gray tones, although it does not possess storage facilities.